It could all come crashing down

The living dead state of the Bush administration

2006.11.24 — Government | Politics | by Derek Jensen

This is the end of the George W Bush presidency. He's not merely a lame duck now, hamstrung by a disgusted public and a do-nothing Congress. His administration is in danger of collapsing in on itself in a spectacle of catastrophic failure not seen since the fall of the communist bloc.

It is more or less self-evident that George W Bush is doomed to go down in history as one of the worst public speakers, one of the worst policy-makers, one of the worst foreign diplomats, and one of the worst commanders-in-chief of all American presidents (and, subsequently, one of the worst of all presidents). The question is only: will the American people force him out before the end of his term?

George W Bush led America into a disastrous war with a disastrous foreign policy and proceeded to lie and deny any and all negative reports surrounding the mess. His domestic policy is a mudflat of failed programs (No Child Left Behind) and corrupt legislation (Medicare prescription drug act) coupled with astoundingly inept management of genuine emergencies (Iraq, homeland security, and Katrina) and impending emergencies (global climate change and the national debt).

It is generally acknowledged that he is an ideolog who refuses to face reality (former sycophant Bob Woodward's Denial) and a Republican that has abandoned virtually every plank of the conservative agenda for something not liberal but rather radical and bizarre (abstinence-only sex ed, anti-science demogogery, wasteful spending binges, and anti-social "diplomacy" toward allies and no diplomacy at all toward enemies).

About 65% of the public disapprove of his performance and 33% are kidding themselves or lying to feign support because they too are ideologs who support their leader blindly. A substantial portion of Americans believe his actions warrant impeachment.

Update: With the death of motorcade escort Steve Favela, Bush could be thrown out less for high crimes and more for being a Jonah. The man seems truly jinxed.

With a Democratic Congress, Bush now faces the horror of actual oversight of his programs and policies, and the path he has carved out to get to this point. Even tho, Pelosi says that impeachment is "off the table," there will be hearings, reports, subpoenas to get the full account of the decision-making that made such disastrous decisions.

The bungled firing of Donald Rumsfeld is just the beginning of the end of the Bush presidency. In spite of Bush's renewed hubris in renominating John Bolton for UN ambassador, more will fall on their swords—or be pushed—including, perhaps, even the vice-president, the one man who may be even more culpable than the president himself for the unmitigated disaster that the last five years have been. An adviser more ideological, more partisan, more vengeful, more blind, and more influential than any other, the vice-president could could find the entire White House if not the entire Republican party turn against him and urge his ouster in hopes of breathing new life into the rotting carcass of the administration by appointing Rudy Giuliani or, heaven forbid, Condi Rice to replace him.

That, of course, would bring on impeachment more surely than an invasion of Iran, because "President Dick Cheney" is the only thing Americans are more frightened of than two more years of "staying the course" on a runaway train. Having him out of the way would be an invitation to hearings that could end only in Bush's resignation.

And there's not much stopping Congress from a double helping of impeachment hearings in the first place except the obvious result is that it would be a de facto coup that would install Speaker Nancy Pelosi in the White House. That would never really happen, of course, since Cheney would resign and be replaced in a minute so that Bush's hand-picked successor would become president in the event of his own removal.

But the sheer fact that the president and Congress must be mulling over these possibilities means that the Bush presidency is over. Kaput. Fini. One more serious misstep—a military skirmish with Iran, a coup in Iraq, the failure to prevent another even very minor terrorist attack on American soil, or even just vetoing a popular bill from the Democratic Congress—would be likely to spark a wave of anti-administration feeling that could topple it at surely as any no-confidence vote in a parliamentary democracy.

Call it over. Mark the time. Get ahold of the next of kin. We've lost this patient. The best the faithful can hope for is to ride out the next two years in a state of slow decay—the zombie presidency, with Bush trying to salvage his historical legacy by signing some of the Democrats' good ideas into law. But he's so intractable, so blind, and so flat-footed that he may fail even to do that. And that could bring the whole administration tumbling down.

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